(Photo: Robin Buckson, Detroit News)
More than 30 spouses, children and other relatives of Michigan State basketball coaches and university and athletic-department staffers traveled on the airplane that took the Spartans men's basketball team to the Final Four in Minneapolis this month, leaving the cheer team and band to go by bus.
Michigan State released a heavily redacted copy of the 144-person travel manifest to The Detroit News this week, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
The university's who's-in and who's-out choices sparked social-media outrage when it was revealed Michigan State's "Spartan Brass" band and its cheer team — 43 people in all — would travel to the Final Four by chartered bus when they had traveled on the team charter plane for the first two weekends of the NCAA Tournament.